


roots that sleep beneath

by Cockbite (personalized_radio)



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Fake Chop, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 20:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17290970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/personalized_radio/pseuds/Cockbite
Summary: "Even when the first petal came, coughed up through his giggling and caught in the air between them before James noticed, it didn’t seem real. Even as it got worse and started to hurt, Aleks had been sure he could outlast it. And he had, sort of."you know we had to do it to em





	roots that sleep beneath

**Author's Note:**

> thank you @cibmata for being the very best beta ever of all time

Aleks has always liked flying. The way take-off makes his stomach flip, how the earth looks from so high above it - big rolling hills with hundreds of little swimming pools dotted across it in suburban backyards, stretching from Massachusetts to California. He even likes the personal air conditioner vents overhead, the little plastic cups, the half cans of Coke.

Since booking the ticket, sitting in the back of a Lyft, Aleks hasn’t been able to stop moving. Fidgeting with the straps of his bag and bouncing his leg. Messing with the broken spinner in his pocket. He started drinking as soon as he’d passed through security.

The flight attendant brings him another rum and coke and it burns going down but doesn’t do anything to numb his frayed nerves.  

He could be late. From the look of things there isn’t much time left. 

Which is sort of funny, because there was a time Aleks felt as if all they had was time. Slow days and quick years, filled with so much excitement - scuffles and heists and so many close-calls, so much goddamn fucking around - laughing so hard and so loud his head felt like it’d pop. He couldn’t imagine it ending. 

Even when the first petal came, coughed up through his giggling and caught in the air between them before James noticed, it didn’t seem real. Even as it got worse and started to hurt, Aleks had been sure he could outlast it. And he had, sort of. 

When he couldn’t hide it anymore, he ran. Put enough space and time between them that his heart started to scab over. The vines he’d been concealing for years, the ones that burst through the ocean and sky on his arms, followed the lines on his chest - they’d receded. He had once coughed bouquets, waking up covered in leaves and petals, pollen yellow and sticky between his fingers and gluing his eyes shut. 

And then it was gone. Crawled back inside him from one day to the next. 

And that’s when he turned back on his phone. 

And that’s when he’d seen the text messages. 

His phone is unlocked on the fold-down table in front of him and if the person in the seat over bothered to look they’d think it was a garden. Vivid colors bursting from every corner; no sign of arms or torso or those ridiculously big eyes. If there’s anything left of him, not even Aleks can see it. And no one knows the shape of James better than he does. 

Next to his phone is his last petal; a unique teardrop, pink and orange and yellow, like a tiny fire. He’d breathed it out just as he was getting on the plane, like the last dredges of a cold, coughed up unceremoniously and then gone. Side by side, he can see the flowers his petal comes from now. How they’re growing on long, curled tendrils out from the middle of what he guesses is James’ bed. 

He’s been on this flight for what feels like years. There are new, stiff aches in his knees and elbows and across his shoulders to match the one in his chest, and his mind drifts to the bottle of painkillers he’d left on the nightstand. By the look in the flight attendant’s eye, Aleks is sure he’s been given his last drink, but he doesn’t even feel a buzz. Except for how much he does, anyway, his movements slow and heavy, brain fuzzy and paralyzed. It might be, he can admit, from fear more than alcohol. 

The sun is rising through the little cut-out window, and Aleks wishes his vines had come through his feet first instead of his arms. Wishes they’d rooted him in California, tied him down from running away. 

“So, huh. Business trip or pleasure?” the guy next to him asks, the first words he’s spoken the whole flight. The plane had started to shake at some point, when Aleks wasn’t paying attention, and the guy grips the armrest between them with white knuckles. 

“Neither.” 

Aleks locks his phone and stuffs it into his hoodie pocket. The guy doesn’t say anything else and neither does Aleks.

Los Santos is distinct on the horizon. Glowing bright and pretty from far away, even in the pre-dawn. It sparkles and looks welcoming and the first time Aleks had seen it James had smiled at him from the passenger seat of his Camaro, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and Aleks had felt breathless. Had wanted to hold his hand. 

James is down there now, in his shitty apartment somewhere between the Vinewood sign and the ocean. And maybe Aleks won’t get to him in time. 

The plane circles and circles and finally lands and Aleks is the first one on his feet, grabbing his bag from the overhead and shouldering his way to the front. He hadn’t had the wherewithal to bring more than his backpack, stuffed hastily with the clothes off his bedroom floor and his charger. He’d checked five times before leaving for his wallet. Felt a pain in his chest for Mishka and Celia, both of them staring at him with wide, curious eyes. Either he’d be going back to pick them up from his father or he’d be going back home to stay, when all of this was done, but he couldn’t think about that.  

Couldn’t think about how fucking  _ long  _ his life would be without James in it.

As promised, Brett is waiting for him outside the terminal in his stupid, ugly truck. He doesn’t say anything as Aleks climbs in, but he touches his shoulder, and that’s all it takes to fracture his fragile composure. Aleks leans forward, head pressed to the dashboard and hands around his throat, as if he could stop the awful, pathetic sounds from escaping. He can’t. 

Brett puts his hand on the back of Aleks’ neck, rubs his thumb into the tense muscle of his shoulder, and does his best to placate him when he loses his entire fucking shit at the sight of Los Santos’ early morning traffic.

-

It used to take him forty-five minutes to get from his place to the airport. Twenty from his apartment to James’. Somehow, it takes almost two hours to get from the airport to James’, and Aleks doesn’t have the brain power to figure out why - the time or the day or maybe the fucking  _ President _ is in town - instead just gives in to the traffic. He’s gotten used to feeling helpless.

No matter what the reason, dread is eating him up, turning his stomach, by the time Brett pulls into the parking lot of James’ complex. He doesn’t notice how badly he’s shaking - like a  _ leaf _ \- until he reaches for the door handle. Aleks feels... cold, in his chest. Split open and hollowed out. Like his lungs are bared. 

“If...” Brett starts, “if it’s too late, Aleks-”

“It’s not,” he says, because it  _ can’t _ be. 

Aleks gets out of the car and leaves no room for Brett to continue. With a hand braced against the car, he feels weak, can feel his heart beating, and takes in the familiar sight of James’ home. 

At the bottom of the red door, in the space between it and the floor, there are little sprouts of yellow-green. They’re curled under the wood, stretching in straight lines towards the sun. Delicate little things. 

Los Santos isn’t known for its greenery, but there are pockets across the city - just like there are across the whole world - of wildflowers and fruiting trees, plant life of all kinds, made from people who just collapsed to be overtaken by the earth. Those places had always felt sad to look at. And terrifying, thinking he’d be one someday. 

Now, looking at the persistent little fucks that have managed to find their way to the door, it’s strange to think it’s not him turning to dirt. He’d been so close, so sure it would take him, vines like ribbons twisting around his wrists and throat, and maybe he’d wanted them to, just a little. Wanted it to stop hurting. To either fall out of love or let it drag him under the ground. 

Not in his most fucked up moments, in the deepest, darkest corners of his imagination, in his torturous brain, could he have ever thought it would be James. 

He hadn’t needed to read all of Brett and Lindsey’s text messages to know what happened. All he’d needed to hear was that it was taking James, furiously fast, voraciously. Hardly any time at all between the first petal to the first vines and thorns pushing through to  _ this.  _ And he knew.

A truth that becomes clearer with each unsteady step he takes towards the apartment. 

That James had loved him and loved him and loved him, all that time, all those years, without a petal, with not a single doubt that Aleks loved him back. Knew it right down in his bones, where it was supposed to be, where it held back the magic that waits inside everyone who has felt such an endless, unlikely thing. That all the time Aleks spent second-guessing and convincing himself that every touch and smile and stolen kiss was worthless, meaningless, James had only felt  _ loved _ by  _ him _ . 

Aleks pushes the door open and the first thing that hits him is the sweet, earthy smell before his eyes adjust to the dark. All along the walls of the foyer, down the hall to the bathroom and James’ bedroom beyond that, is covered in thick, densely packed vines. In moss and criss-crossing stems of flowers, woven into every surface. A sob catches in the back of his throat and he chokes. 

A light clicks on in the kitchen, and it spills down the hall and touches the corner of James’ bedroom door. Now Aleks can see Ein, her snout pushed into the gap between the door and the rug. In the silence, now that he’s listening, Aleks can hear her crying. It makes him realize he’s crying too. 

Lindsey appears in the archway to the kitchen at the same time Brett comes in, pressing against Aleks’ back, like they’re both reminding him that there’s nowhere to go but forward. To the little room at the end of the hall, a garden, a forest, a bedroom, a terrible, beautiful thing that has sprung out of the only person Aleks has ever really loved. 

Who he left. Left alone for so long, in such quietness, that James thought he’d never come back. Abandoned in a way so abrupt and heartless James must have thought Aleks had never loved him at all.

Lindsey looks just as tired and upset as Brett, but Aleks can’t stop to talk to her. Can’t even force his mouth open. Brett takes another step to push Aleks a little down the hall, as if reminding him not to lose his nerve. As if there’s any direction he can move in other than this one.

He can only inch his way closer to the bedroom and Ein, carefully placing his feet into whatever little spaces of carpet are still left. Every time he steps on green, it feels like he’s stepping on James, and he snatches his foot back to find a better place for it. The flowers are beautiful, in a sick way. Vibrant, even in the dark, and big as the palm of his hand, with thick, waxy petals that match the one tucked safely in his pocket.

Ein doesn’t move from the doorway when he reaches it. There are vines that have grown around her, just one or two over her paws and back, but it tells Aleks that things are growing fresh and strong. It’s a relief, at least, to have proof that James is alive.

He tries to say  _ hey, girl _ , but he still can’t talk. Instead, he kneels down and carefully detangles the vines from her, lifting her heft when she does nothing but whine louder at his efforts until she’s freed. 

“Aleks,” Lindsey says quietly, breaking the silence, but he just shakes his head and stands up to try the door handle. It sticks even when he pushes against it with his shoulder. 

“It won’t open, Aleks,” Lindsey tries again so he takes a few steps back and rams into it. He feels the wood shudder, hears the splintering of the cheap door frame, sees the green moss that has infested the hinges and lock. 

He feels like a fraud, like a coward. This was supposed to be him. These were his vines, his flowers,  _ his petals _ -

He presses his forehead to the door, jiggles the handle uselessly, rasps out, “ _ James _ ,” because that is the only word he can form. 

With one more heave, he manages to force the door open - only to have it stop short inches in, probably against another vine that won’t be busted through as easily as moss. It’s not enough for him to fit through, but he tries anyway, shoving his arm and shoulder and leg through the opening and pushing against it until the wood begins to splinter more. Aleks pushes. Gathers all the strength he knows and  _ pushes _ until something snaps, and gives, and the rest of him stumbles into the bedroom. 

The rest of the apartment is dark, but James’ bedroom is full of sunlight. It shines through the windows, through the flowers that are growing on vines creeping over the glass, and paints everything yellow and orange. The greens are brighter. So healthy they almost look like they’re glowing. Every inch of James’ room is covered in plants; saplings and bushes, roses and lilies and flowers Aleks doesn’t know the names of. Pretty hibiscus blossoms all along the edges of his bed.  

And James is in there somewhere. 

Aleks only finds the bed because he already knows where it is. He trips twice getting to it, once over a vine and when a flower blooms just as he’s stepping, and he nearly has to action roll to avoid ruining it. On his hands and knees, Aleks finds the sheets tacky and stiff with sap. He follows it with his fingers until he can’t anymore, too lost under the dense flowers to keep going. They’re the most vibrant of the whole house, here; the ones he’d been looking at on the plane. He’s stared at them so long in pixels that seeing them in real life is almost too much to process.

When he parts the first bundle of flowers, his hands sweaty and trembling, he finds himself in awe of their beauty. Wonder turns quickly into something else, so ugly and frightening the word horror can’t describe it, as his fingers dig through the petals to reveal ghostly pale skin. 

He’s found James’ fingers. His skin is hot, stretched and nearly splitting around the knuckles, bloody where new buds sprout through joints and from under his fingernails.

Aleks lets the flowers fall back to their place as he follows along James’ fingers to his wrist, up his arm to the elbow, and keeps going. Every inch he reveals to the sunlight is translucent and covered in roots and vines like lace, with moss growing in some areas, tinged pink with blood from the initial blooming. There are white and yellow and red roses in the curves of James’ elbows. Leaves bigger than Aleks’ head. Blossoms the size of dinner plates. He nicks himself on a thorn as he pushes past them, feels the sharp sting, and tries not to imagine how it must have felt when they tore through James’ skin.

All his tattoos are ruined. He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up. 

Aleks scrubs a hand over his cheeks because he’s trying to see but  _ can’t _ , vision too blurry with tears. Salt that seeps into all the cuts and nicks on his face he hadn’t noticed were there.

Finally, he finds James’ shoulder, one perfect clear patch of skin for him to rest his palm on. It’s too pale to look right; his olive complexion is gone and he’s so ashen it’s unnerving. If Aleks couldn’t feel how warm his skin is he’d think James was already dead. He has to push the thought away, and instantly loses himself in a small field of daisies up the side of James’ neck, through the curls of his overgrown beard. 

James’ face, when he finds it, makes Aleks reel back just a moment. He chokes, a sound caught between horror and despair, and tastes bile in the back of his mouth. 

There’s no face Aleks knows better than James’. His full, pink cheeks, the curve of his nose. The soft lines of his mouth and around his eyebrows, and the smooth skin below his eyes. Aleks knows James’ face better than his own. 

He’s nearly unrecognizable.

His mouth is soaked with bright red blood and sap, most of it fresh, and loose petals line his sticky lips. The gentle movement of the leaves from the surrounding flowers give away his ghostly breathing, as weak as it is. Aleks stifles another sob when it occurs to him what exactly he’s looking at. Growing out of James’ open, unseeing eyes are two perfect Siberian irises, blue-purple and unfolding delicately. There had been a field of them behind the place he’d grown up, stretching off so far he used to think they covered the whole world. Aleks tries to move them, but they’ve covered the entire socket on both sides and he’s scared to pinch or pull. 

Shaking, he puts his hands on James’ face, pushes his fingers through the thick stems that frame him and strokes under one iris with his thumb.

“James?” he says, voice cracking, “James? Hey, wake up, buddy.”

If James can hear him, there’s no sign of it. There’s no movement, his breathing doesn’t change. Nothing. But Aleks moves closer anyway, the best he can with the flowers and goddamn  _ shrubbery  _ growing out of James’ abdomen. Gets closer to feel the warmth of him, James’ body, the brush, the sun at his back. 

Something he can't describe climbs out of his chest, clawing its way to his mouth, and Aleks doesn’t know what he wants to say - what he can say - until he’s already saying it. His tears falling like raindrops on James’ flowers, clinging to every petal and leaf like dew.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and, thorns and bristles and everything be fucking damned, he climbs up on the bed and makes space himself. “I’m so sorry, Jamie. I would have never - never left you. I should have -” 

He’s not saying much of anything, but each word feels like it rips open his throat on the way out.  He’s no fucking good at this. Doesn’t have the words to explain why he left or any excuses that will make up for years of not seeing, not  _ feeling _ that James loved him back. When now, confronted with what’s become of him, it seems obvious. The softness in his eyes that belonged only to Aleks. Body wrapped around his, teaching him to fire a gun, his laughter warm in Aleks’ ear. Hours and days and weeks spent on their ugly fucking couch at the warehouse, shaken after bad jobs, tired from long nights, just happy to be with each other. James’ arm around him and those fingers buried in his hair as Aleks drifted off to sleep.

He should have told James when he coughed up the first petal. Should have let him see it. 

It would have been easy.  

He’s not thinking. Can’t think. There’s no room in his head for anything but what his own stupidity, his insecurities, his refusal to see what was right in front of him is about to cost. And if James does die, what would be left of him?  _ For him?  _ If this bed, in this apartment, in this awful fucking city, is the last place James will ever be then it’s the place where Aleks will stay until the earth takes him back too.

Aleks starts pulling where he can. Where it feels safe. Pushing aside twigs and stems and bundles of flowers until his hands start to bleed. Until he’s made a space for himself on what’s left of the bed and can climb into it, press his body against James’. 

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says again, and knows his tears are falling everywhere. Over the twisted vines and sunset colored petals they’re surrounded by. His face is red and hot, and the more of James he uncovers the harder he cries.

He strokes James’ cheeks, brushing small, pink-purple flowers away, like baby’s breath, and thumbs his lips clean before leaning in for a kiss. It tastes of sugar, of salt from Aleks’ sadness and metal from the blood, so he kisses him again and then again until he finds James underneath.

“I fucked up,” he whispers, because talking is all he can do. Just talk and hope and pick flowers and leaves off where he can. “But I’m here now. So you have to wake up.” He takes a deep breath, then another, and presses a careful finger to the corner of James’ left eye.  

When Aleks had started to bloom it had  _ hurt _ and that was just a few little flowers, some stems and foliage. He doesn’t want to imagine what James would feel if he woke up now. His belly covered densely with baby saplings, arms split open and grassy, the flowers in his eyes. The pain would kill him for sure.

In the hall, Ein whines and paws at the door and it draws Aleks’ attention back to the moment. Where his tears landed, flowers have begun to brown and curl, leaves shriveling on vines beginning to wilt, and he plucks them as he continues to talk. Careful to only take what’s already dead, or loose, or doesn’t feel like it would hurt to pluck. 

Hope springs to life inside him. 

“I messed up so bad, dude, I should have just - said something. I shouldn’t have left you.” Aleks finds a patch of dandelions along what he thinks are James’ ribs. He pushes his hand through them, shaking out their little umbrellaed seeds, and wishes, and wishes. “I love you. I’ve always loved you and you fucking knew it and I’m sorry I made you think it wasn’t true. I’m so sorry, James.”

Aleks isn’t expecting a response and he doesn’t get one, but James is still breathing. He’s still alive. His hands wet with tears, he brushes them over the small flowers on James’ face and watches them wither and dry up. Aleks picks them from his beard. 

There’s no sign James can hear him but Aleks talks anyway. Recounts his first petal, and his second, and how he couldn’t stop the doubt from overtaking him. His insecurities growing and growing until he was filled with them, until they started growing roots and pushed out through his skin. Tells him about running, the idea he could spare James the guilt of not loving him back if he could hide it. That he didn’t want to burden him. 

He tells him how he’d run back home to his childhood room to lie down and wait to bloom properly. And how he’d been upset when he realized it wasn’t going to happen. That the idea of falling out of love with James hurt just as much as James not loving him back. 

“You took it,” he realizes, the words catching in his throat. “That’s why - why it stopped.  _ James _ .”

Time passes. Aleks doesn’t know how much of it.

As he talks, more of what James has become begins to pale and rot. The flowers caught between their bodies crunch whenever Aleks moves. The vines and twigs and leaves dry into husks. 

The only thing that remains on James’ face are the irises in his eyes.

He’s desperate to know if it’s happening to the rest of it, too. If those little sprouts trying to make their way out the door have gone. If the sounds he can hear are Lindsey and Brett brushing away the dead things on the walls and sweeping them out. James must hear him, or feel him, or whatever connects them - their matching petals, the forest they seem to share, the roots between their hearts - maybe it’s tugging at him too. The way it tugs at Aleks. 

With enough dead and cleared away Aleks can get close. Close enough to warm James’ shoulder and the line of his neck. And as he talks and hums through his own sadness, the color of James’ skin comes back, his own breath driving it away like wind, the way clouds roll in. It happens under his hands too, rubbing them over every part of James he reach, until that ash gray disappears, brushed away like dust, and James is underneath. 

Like uncovering something lost and buried and making it new again. A second life. 

“Come back, come back,” Aleks whispers between kisses to James’ cheek and shoulder and chest. “Come back because you were right, I fucking love you, and you love being right. Come back and gloat and make me feel like an asshole.” 

Aleks presses their hands together and feels that James’ fingers are  _ moving.  _ Little twitches against Aleks’ palm. And once he notices that he notices it all. His wiggling toes and a small jerk in his knee and the difference in his breathing. Like being able to tell when someone goes from sleeping to awake, even if they keep their eyes closed.

The color in the irises has faded a little and Aleks takes the risk to bring his hands up, press his thumbs to the sides of James’s nose and then drags them over his eyes. The petals turn instantly, wilt and brown and fall away under Aleks’ touch.  

And James closes his unseeing eyes and opens them again. 

“Hey,” Aleks breathes, wiping pollen and sap from James’ eyelashes. His stiff body thrashes a little under Aleks’ as he comes to. The sounds he makes are hoarse and surely painful. “Hey, you're okay. I got you.” 

“ _ Aleks _ ,” James rasps and his breath smells like wildflowers.

Aleks laughs, broken and wet, as he rubs the pads of his fingers over James’ eyebrows, brushes the ashy remains of sprouts from his face. There are still things planted along his body but Aleks can see them decaying more rapidly now. If he has to, he’ll spend all day and night cleaning them away.. 

“You came back,” James’ voice is weak. Small.

“I shouldn't have left.” Aleks presses his nose to James’ temple, then his lips, and can feel his blood pumping under warm skin. Can smell the sickly sweet scent of roses. 

“Why did you-” James starts, but stops when he begins to cough. Aleks helps him sit up, plant matter snapping and breaking as James tears away from what had been holding him down.

He coughs up what looks like an entire damn fern, thistle, along with plenty of petals and unbloomed buds,  but they're dying as they leave him, losing their color and shape as soon as they hit the air. Aleks rubs his back, scrapes away the dying mess as he goes, revels in his bare - if marred - skin. 

James holds onto Aleks’ knee so tightly in hurts, like there’s still thorns on the pads of his fingers. Aleks’ doesn't complain. Instead, he just comforts him, promises that he's okay, he’ll be okay, that it's over now and he's here and he's never, ever fucking leaving again.

When it’s over, James collapses sideways into Aleks’ arms, head on his shoulder. Aleks tries to hold him tight enough to stop both their trembling. 

“I fucking hate nature.”

Aleks laughs humorlessly and wipes his tears into James’ hair, where clusters of tiny flowers seem to remain braided into his matted curls. 

“Yeah, I bet.” He sighs.“Shit, James. I’m-”

James shakes his head against Aleks’ neck, clutching at his arm with weak fingers. It’s silent except for the soft sounds from behind the door and the muffled cars outside. Aleks can't keep to himself, his hands in James’ hair and along his arms and legs, rubbing away that deathly hue with every touch. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It's my fault,” Aleks shushes him.

“Aleksandr, I'm  _ sorry _ .” James grabs his hand and squeezes it as tight as he can. Which isn’t much at all. “I should have...I thought you knew. I should have  _ told  _ you. I thought-”

“Shut up,” Aleks cuts him off, “I should have known. Maybe I did. I just fucking - got in my head. Convinced myself you didn’t _. Couldn’t.”  _

Under his cheek, James shakes as his breath stutters, and he makes a terrible, gut-wrenching sound. Letting go of Aleks’ hand, he reaches to his chest, where some of the growth is still dying, and his own hand comes back sticky with sap and blood. They both look at it for a long second and the realization passes between them that James’ body is about to expel everything that’s left. 

Frantically, Aleks takes James’ cheeks and forces his eyes only on him. They aren’t looking at anything but each other, but Aleks knows James’ abdomen is stitching itself back together. The open sores where he’d bloomed are closing, inch by inch, down his arms and legs and back.  By the look on his face it’s excruciating, but it means this is going to be over. That James isn’t going to die. 

His eyes close and Aleks closes his too, plastering their bodies together among the decay. James makes another pained noise and Aleks whispers, “I love you. I love you so much, Jamie,” and holds him even tighter after he passes out. 

Aleks can feel the sun moving across the room but doesn’t know how much time passes. He falls asleep too, between cleaning James up as he heals, and feels thankful neither Brett or Lindsey try poking their heads in. 

It’s dark in the room when James wakes up for good, rolling over onto Aleks, crowding into him, pressing him down onto the dirty mattress. There are tears in his eyes but he’s smiling, breathing deep and clear and all him. Every part of his body familiar and healthy and warm. 

“I love you,” he says, and Aleks’ eyes start burning. “I love you, Aleks. Fucking always, you idiot. You asshole.” 

Aleks nods, not trusting himself to do anything else. And he knows he doesn’t need to tell James he loves him now - he’s alive, and that’s proof enough - but he says it anyway. Pushes up to kiss him, to feel his lips against his, to feel him breathing, to press them together chest to chest and feel his beating heart.


End file.
